Owen Paterson should be suspended from the Commons for 30 days for “egregious” breaches of MPs’ lobbying rules, the standards authority has ruled.
The former Cabinet minister was found to have committed a dozen breaches of Commons rules for taking on paid work on behalf of two companies without declaring them in the proper way.
Mr Paterson hit back against the watchdog’s ruling insisting the investigation “does not comply with natural justice”.
A leading Brexiteer, he faces being hit with one of the longest suspensions from Parliament, leading to a trigger ballot and a potential by-election.
The Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards opened the investigation in October 2019 following allegations Owen Paterson had improperly lobbied for clinical diagnostics company Randox and meat processor Lynn’s Country Foods.
The commissioner found the North Shropshire MP had breached a rule prohibiting paid advocacy in the MPs’ Code of Conduct in making three approaches to the Food Standards Agency relating to Randox and the testing of antibiotics in milk in November 2016 and 2017.
He was also found to have breached the rule over making seven approaches to the same agency for Lynn’s Country Foods between November 2017 and July 2018, and four approaches to ministers in the Department for International Development relating to Randox and blood testing technology in October 2016 and January 2017.
The report said: “The committee found that Mr Paterson’s actions were an egregious case of paid advocacy, that he repeatedly used his privileged position to benefit two companies for whom he was a paid consultant, and that this has brought the House into disrepute.”
It also found that Mr Paterson “made serious, personal, and unsubstantiated allegations against the integrity of the Commissioner and her team”.
The committee acknowledged there were mitigating factors around the investigation into Mr Paterson, including the death of his wife Rose in June 2020.
The former environment secretary has dismissed the ruling, however, stating: “I reject completely the findings of the Committee for Parliamentary Standards. The methods of the investigation do not create a just and fair outcome.
“Most importantly, not one of my 17 witnesses have been interviewed during the course of the investigation despite the passage of 24 months – not by the Commissioner, and not by the Committee. These highly reputable and reliable witnesses are the very people who say I am not guilty. What court, what work-place investigation, would ignore such evidence and call its procedures fair?”